Proctor and Gamble Buys MDVIP – Physician Boutique Practice Company

MDVIP has been around for a while and was probably one of the first such companies to open. The video below explains what a Boutique Medical Practice is all about and the pros and cons. What it interesting was that Proctor and Gamble sold off their prescription drug business last year to Warner Chilcott.

Proctor and Gamble Finds a Buyer for Its Prescription Drug Business – 3 Billion

The company still has a multitude of over the counter products and the FDA recently was questioning the fact that vitamin C was advertised as an ingredient in Nyquil, one of their well known products.

With the pre-designed business plan and administration, it costs patients $1500.00 a year which covers a physical, health assessment. Insurance companies are still billed and co-pays are collected, but patients have 24/7 access and non rushed appointments. Even though they take insurance, there’s still this same old problem:

United has dropped some doctors in retainer practices ...

Proctor and Gamble said there was to be no real change in the business model and it was not going to use the doctors to promote their over the counter medical products. This may be a good situation for those who can still “afford” the services. This is an interesting investment by Proctor and Gamble, so I guess a doctor business must be more appealing today than a prescription drug business. bD

The doctor is in at Procter & Gamble as the company best known for selling detergent, shampoo and diapers ventures outside the consumer products marketplace and into ownership of a nationwide medical group.

P&G has purchased MDVIP, a network of 350 doctors in 28 states that offers a boutique approach to medicine, promising more personal attention to patients in exchange for an annual fee.

For P&G, the venture will bring valuable insight into consumer health care, a huge market that is ripe for growth. Worldwide, over-the-counter health-care products are a $240 billion market, growing 5 percent a year, propelled by an aging population, longer life spans and an increasing interest in wellness.

P&G says it does not plan to market its products through the physician offices but rather use the company as "an incubator for primary care medicine," allowing it to gather information about patients and physicians, service and prevention. In 2008, for example, MDVIP worked with California-based Navigenics Inc., which P&G owns a stake in, to test that company's genetic marker that can gauge patients' predisposition to cancer, diabetes, heart attacks and other conditions.